Notebook industry heavyweights are reportedly planning to develop ARM-powered notebooks for the mainstream PC market.

DigiTimes.com today reported that systems running on ARM-based architecture could hit the market by the end of 2011 or the beginning of 2012, when Microsoft's Windows 8 OS is expected to be released. ARM's partnership with Microsoft will allow ARM to break into the notebook market.

The website did not disclose its sources but said that Samsung Electronics, Toshiba, Acer and Asustek Computer are among the companies interested to develop ARM architecture notebooks.

Vendors' will obviously have to chooose among Nvidia's Tegra, Qualcomm's Snapdragon and processors from Texas Instruments - all based on the ARM architecture.

ARM-based systems using Android were already launched under the smartbook name two years ago with Toshiba and Lenovo both launching products in the retail channel. Asustek has already made plans to launch a 13-inch ARM-based notebook adopting Nvidia's processor with Android.

Currently, ARM is offering high-performing quad-core CPUs, its platform supports high storage capacities and offers an enhanced user interface.

The ARM-based notebooks are expected to be aggressively priced - probably less than US$300 - to better compete with Intel's and AMD's platforms.